By Tiernan Ray

Pacific Crest analysts Michael McConnell, John Vinh, and James Faucette today offered up the latest installment of their “tablet tracker,” with their predictions for the action in tablet computer sales this year.

The firm projects 172 million tablets will be sold this calendar year, up 61%, with Apple (AAPL) selling perhaps 86.3 million of those units, a 30% year-over-year increase.

“We continue to see Apple holding a share lead in the tablet market this year, with incremental share gains by Samsung [Electronics (005930KS)] and Google (GOOG).

Samsung, maker of devices such as the “Galaxy Note 10.1” and the ”Galaxy Tab,” will be especially aggressive this year, the trio believe, perhaps boosting its sales by 233% to 40 million units.

“Supply chain conversations indicate a goal of 40 million units for the Galaxy Tab and Galaxy Note 10.1 tablets in 2013 for Samsung,” the authors write. “This would be alarge increase over our estimate of 12 million tablets sold in 2012. Supporting this goal is a significant increase in activity for 1Q13.”

Google, which sells its own “Nexus 7” and “Nexus 10” and such tablets, may have an even bigger jump, perhaps grabbing third place in tablet hardware sales away from Amazon.com (AMZN) with units of 15.3%, the firm believes, up 263%.

The analysts have an estimate of 6.3 million units of Microsoft’s (MSFT) Surface RT and Pro tablets, which would be a quadrupling from the estimated 1.2 million the device sold in the December quarter, its first (partial) quarter on the market. But the analysts write that “We believe Microsoft’s conservative approach represents a lack of confidence in x86 Surface Pro tablet and lower-than-expected demand for the original ARM Holdings (ARMH)-based Surface.

About Tech Trader Daily

Tech Trader Daily is a blog on technology investing written by Barron’s veteran Tiernan Ray. The blog provides news, analysis and original reporting on events important to investors in software, hardware, the Internet, telecommunications and related fields. Comments and tips can be sent to: techtraderdaily@barrons.com.